The rain didn’t stop. It poured like the sky itself had split open, washing the world in silver and shadow. The road ahead was empty, or so it seemed, until the headlights caught them—dark figures emerging from the mist like phantoms. A line of cars blocked the narrow lane, black and slick with rain, and in the center of it all stood the man Liam had been running from. The boss. His umbrella tilted in the storm, his suit immaculate despite the weather. Around him, his goons fanned out like wolves—guns at their sides, eyes cold. Liam braked hard, the tires screaming against wet asphalt. The boy stirred in the backseat, a whimper caught in his throat. Sophia’s breath hitched as her eyes locked on the figures outside. “They found us,” she whispered. Liam’s jaw tightened. “I know.” The boss stepped forward, his shadow long beneath the headlights. He didn’t raise his voice; he didn’t need to. “You’ve made a mess, Liam.” The rain dripped from Liam’s hair as he stepped out, the
The night was thick and restless, the kind that made even the trees whisper secrets. Outside, the wind howled against the old house like a warning, but inside, the air was too still—too calculated. The lights were off. The door was bolted. Every window locked.Liam sat on the edge of the couch, his jaw tight, his fingers tapping the armrest with a rhythm that betrayed his unease. A small duffel bag rested at his feet—half-packed, waiting. Upstairs, the boy slept, unaware of the storm that brewed outside and the one ready to explode inside these walls.Sophia—Elizabeth—hovered in the hallway, her arms crossed over her chest. She had been watching him for the last ten minutes, watching the way his eyes darted toward the clock, the way his shoulders twitched at every distant sound. Something was wrong. Very wrong.“Why is the door locked?” she asked finally, her voice steady but quiet.He didn’t look at her. “Because it needs to be.”“That’s not an answer.”Liam finally rose, the tension
Liam’s povI woke up before dawn, long before the house stirred. The air outside was damp, the kind of heavy mist that clung to your skin like a secret. Today was going to be different. Today, I was going to give her what she wanted—or at least, a piece of it.She had been restless these past few days, eyes flicking to the door like a trapped bird that had already mapped the sky beyond its cage. Sophia—no, Elizabeth, my Elizabeth—kept talking about him. Her son. Our son. She still refused to admit it, but that didn’t matter. Truth doesn’t need belief to exist. I had the proof. The DNA test sealed it, but even without that, I would have known. I saw myself in that boy’s face.I decided today I’d surprise her. I’d bring him to her. Maybe then she’d stop looking at me like I was a stranger. Maybe then she’d remember we were once a family—broken, yes, but real.The plan was simple: pick him up from school, bring him home for a few hours, let her see him, touch him, remind her of what we s
Neon walked down the narrow street with his hands shoved deep in his jacket pockets, head low against the crisp morning wind. The city was just waking up—bakeries lifting their shutters, children trailing their mothers toward school, the distant hum of cars starting their day. He wasn’t supposed to be here, not on this side of town. But something had been gnawing at him for days. Liam.Liam had been acting strangely—vanishing for hours without explanation, returning with that cold, unreadable expression that even the boss sometimes struggled to decipher. And Neon, being one of the few who had worked with Liam long enough to notice the cracks in his mask, couldn’t shake the itch that something wasn’t right.As he rounded the corner, his eyes caught a familiar figure at the far end of the street.Liam.Neon slowed his steps, instinctively melting into the shadow of a shop awning. Liam didn’t notice him; his gaze was fixed ahead as he walked with that same calm, predatory stride he alway
The silence stretched for a few seconds longer before Sophia stood from behind the couch, brushing the dust from her skirt. Her face was pale, her jaw tight, eyes blazing as they fixed on Liam. “What was that?”Liam shut the door fully, turned the lock, and leaned against it for a moment. “That,” he said quietly, “was me keeping you alive.”She let out a sharp laugh, bitter and hollow. “Alive? You mean hiding me like a ghost? When I was with Leon, I was fine. I was breathing, I was living, I was okay. And now—now you dragged me back into this,” she gestured at the locked door, the walls, the whole suffocating air of the place. “Your world of secrets and locked doors and watching shadows.”Liam pushed away from the door, his steps measured as he came to the couch and sat down, picking up the bag of chips left on the table from earlier. He took one, bit into it like nothing in the world had just happened, and looked up at her. “Why didn’t you tell me about our son?”The words stopped he
The sharp chime of the doorbell shattered the rare silence in the house.Sophia—no, Elizabeth—looked up from where she sat on the couch, a faint crease forming between her brows. Liam’s entire body went still. It was only a moment, but she caught it: the way his shoulders tensed, the flicker of annoyance—and something else—in his eyes.Again, the bell rang. Persistent. Urgent.“Who’s that?” she asked, her voice even, though her fingers clutched the edge of the blanket on her lap. “Are you not going to open it?”Liam was already moving toward her, his steps quick, deliberate. “Get up,” he said, too low, too sharp.She blinked. “Excuse me?”“Upstairs. Now.”Her frown deepened. “Why?”The bell rang again, this time followed by the faint knock of knuckles on the wooden frame. Whoever was outside wasn’t planning to leave.Liam’s jaw clenched as he turned to look at her fully. “Because I said so,” he snapped, then forced a breath, his tone softening unnaturally. “Please, Sophia. Just this o